A Coach Driver's Experience in Normandy

I have always been interested in both the first and second world wars. This interest only sparked into life when I was asked to undertake a 1st World War battlefields tour centred around Ypres in Belgium. With our Belgian guide, the fascination and horror of the Western Front in that area became a reality and I managed to quench my desire for more and more information by volunteering to undertake further tours of the area.

My first experience of Normandy was when I had the great honour of taking a group of Veterans on a 4 day tour about 7 years ago. In fact, I felt like I was the guest of the veterans of the Windsor branch of the France and Germany Star Veterans Association. The memories of that tour I shall never forget. I witnessed and indeed felt the emotion and sadness on the faces of those men as we visited many sites which had special meaning to them individually. Despite the sadness, the great pride of those men as they marched for 2 miles to place a wreath at a village memorial was indeed a humbling experience. Many of the men had difficulty walking never mind marching but march they did and with their heads held high. I was asked to follow slowly, with my coach at a respectable distance, to allow me to pick up those that couldn’t complete the whole 2 miles. How many did I pick up…..? Not one!!

I am sure that it was my interest in the subject that resulted in us all getting along so well. Each man had his own story to tell and I was honoured to be able to hear them all. I felt the emotions of every one of the group and was deeply moved by the whole tour.

We couldn’t tour Normandy of course, without a visit to Pegasus Bridge. Several of the veterans had experience or memories of the events that took place at the bridge but I was still to experience one of the most incredible lunches I have ever had! I decided to have a coffee and sandwich at the Mme Gondrée’s café alongside Pegasus Bridge when I was invited to sit with a veteran who was not part of my group. This man sat with his French wife in the glorious June sunshine and told me the story of how he was in the first glider to crash land in the marshy field next to the bridge. He told me how the men of that and subsequent gliders, battled almost hand to hand to take the gun positions adjacent to the heavily guarded bridge. I was utterly enthralled by this story. I can’t explain the feelings I experienced as I listened to his story but suddenly, it struck me as I looked at the bridge and the fields beyond that this actually happened; this was real — it actually took place! It is so difficult to feel the experience of something that one was not part of…. but I did. Over lunch that day, I felt what it was like to be there! This man never returned to England. He married a French woman and settled in France (he told me that she couldn’t speak English and he couldn’t speak French. This had resulted in a very quiet marriage with no arguments! I’m sure he was joking though!)

A couple of years later, I took a military group to Pegasus Bridge. These were a group of military staff undergoing training on battlefield techniques. The instructor was only a young fellow and clearly he was well versed in military tactics and battlefield techniques. I asked if I could join the group as we walked across the very fields where the gliders landed over 50 years earlier. My interest in the subject was rewarded when I was allowed to tag along and listen to the events of the day as viewed by the modern military. On our walk back to the coach, I told my story of the lunch I had enjoyed with the veteran and his wife. I was dismayed, shocked and even angered by the instructor’s response. He said that I should not take any notice of the events as detailed by veterans as they only remember the things they want to and only rarely do they know the full story. This statement was to me, like dropping a bombshell. This young man, probably no older than 25 or 26, was trying to tell me that the experience that I myself had felt with the veterans on my tour was nothing more than over-excited emotion! I completed that tour in almost embarrassed silence.

Want I want to say, I want to say to every veteran of WW2. You must tell your stories at every opportunity. You must hold your heads up with pride. We must not be allowed to forget. We must pass those stories on to our children and their children because without your efforts and losses, we would not be free today.

Thank you one and all and thank you to those that made the ultimate sacrifice so that we might be free today.

“Lest We Forget”

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